Beatific Vision

[DanishGuy]

Merry Christmas everyone.

The Beatific Vision is “seeing God” or “seeing the essence of God”.

God is incorporeal is thus this vision cannot be that of a physical vision but must be a spiritual or an intellectual vision.

God is defined as “the greatest conceivable being” and thus infinite beauty?

St. Thomas Aquinas said that “Beauty is that which when perceived; pleases.”

So does this mean that the beatific vision will be more pleasurable than anything imaginable.

I am of course not talking about “pleasure” in a fleshly sense: like having a foot massage or something of a sexual nature.

I mean the joy of seeing the sunset or reading a great book and or poesy.

 

[Vico]

Merry Christmas everyone.

The Beatific Vision is “seeing God” or “seeing the essence of God”.

God is incorporeal is thus this vision cannot be that of a physical vision but must be a spiritual or an intellectual vision.

God is defined as “the greatest conceivable being” and thus infinite beauty?

St. Thomas Aquinas said that “Beauty is that which when perceived; pleases.”

So does this mean that the beatific vision will be more pleasurable than anything imaginable.

I am of course not talking about “pleasure” in a fleshly sense: like having a foot massage or something of a sexual nature.

I mean the joy of seeing the sunset or reading a great book and or poesy.

Catholic Encylopedia

The immediate knowledge of God which the angelic spirits and the souls of the just enjoy in Heaven. It is called “vision” to distinguish it from the mediate knowledge of God which the human mind may attain in the present life. And since in beholding God face to face the created intelligence finds perfect happiness, the vision is termed “beatific”.

Pace, E. (1907). Beatific Vision. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
newadvent.org/cathen/02364a.htm

Also in the topic Heaven:

That the blessed see God is a dogma of faith, expressly defined by Benedict XII (1336):

We define that the souls of all the saints in heaven have seen and do see the Divine Essence by direct intuition and face to face [visione intuitivâ et etiam faciali], in such wise that nothing created intervenes as an object of vision, but the Divine Essence presents itself to their immediate gaze, unveiled, clearly and openly; moreover, that in this vision they enjoy the Divine Essence, and that, in virtue of this vision and this enjoyment, they are truly blessed and possess eternal life and eternal rest" (Denzinger, Enchiridion, ed. 10, n. 530–old edition, n, 456; cf. nn. 693, 1084, 1458 old, nn. 588, 868).

 

[littlestsouls2]

The Beatific Vision is the Source of immeasurable and everlasting delight for the Blessed. None of us can comprehend the sublimity of the Beatific Vision. To one Saint (I think it might have been St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi), Our Lord revealed that the pleasures of earth can be likened to a person drinking a cup of water, whereas the joys of Heaven can be compared to bathing in an infinite ocean!

‘The Happiness of Heaven’ is an inspiring work about Heaven, written by a Jesuit priest. Ven. Rev. Martin von Cochem’s chapter(s) on Heaven in his book ‘The Four Last Things’ is another profound read. It is less theological than the former, and more anecdotal. Both are very, very inspiring.